Broken Flowers - Plot

Plot

Don Johnston (Bill Murray), a former Don Juan having made a small fortune in the computer industry, wants to live in quiet retirement. He is content to lounge around watching old movies and listening to classical music. His current girlfriend, Sherry (Julie Delpy), is ending their relationship and moving out of his house when a letter in a pink envelope arrives. After she walks out, Don reads the letter; it purports to be from an unnamed former girlfriend, informing him that he has a son who is nearly 19 years old, and who may be looking for him. Initially, Don doesn't intend to do anything about it, but his busybody neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright), who is a mystery novel enthusiast, urges Don to investigate. Winston researches the current locations of the five women most likely to have written the letter and gives Don the information along with maps and flight reservations, and urges him to visit them. Don finally agrees and Winston tells Don that he will drive him to the airport the next morning.

Ultimately Don meets with four women, each encounter worse than the last:

• Laura (Sharon Stone) works as a closet and drawer organizer and is the widow of a race car driver. She has a teenage daughter, Lolita (Alexis Dziena), who parades nude in front of Don. That night, Laura sleeps with Don.
• Dora (Frances Conroy) is a realtor. Once a "flower child" of the 1960s, she is now melancholic, apparently resigned in her marriage to Ron (Christopher McDonald).
• Carmen Markowski (Jessica Lange) works as an "animal communicator." Don recalls how she was formerly so passionate about becoming a lawyer. But "passion is a funny thing," she says. She is cold to Don and appears to be having an affair with her secretary (Chloë Sevigny).
• Penny (Tilda Swinton) lives in a rural area amongst bikers. She holds a grudge against Don for some reason. When Don asks her whether she has a son, she becomes enraged, which results in one of her biker friends punching Don out. The next morning, Don finds himself in his car, in the middle of a field, with a nasty cut near his left eye.

Later, Don stops at a florist to buy flowers from a friendly and attractive young woman named Sun Green (Pell James) who bandages his cut. Don leaves the flowers at the grave of the fifth woman, Michelle Pepe, who Don originally thought might be the mother before finding out she had died five years prior. Finally, Don returns home where he meets a young man in the street (Mark Webber) whom he suspects may be his son. He buys him a meal, but when he remarks that the young man believes that Don is his father, the young man becomes agitated and flees. As Don attempts to chase the man, he notices a Volkswagen Beetle drive past. A young man in the passenger seat (played by Homer Murray, the real-life son of Bill Murray) is listening to the music which Don himself listens to as Don is left standing in the middle of a crossroads.